


The Man Without Purpose

by ProfessionalTsundere



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, Interrogation, Interrogation Disguised as Twenty Questions, Light-Hearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalTsundere/pseuds/ProfessionalTsundere
Summary: Why do you fight, Goro Akechi?
Kudos: 19





	The Man Without Purpose

“How do you want to do this?”

“Pardon?” Goro Akechi stared at Akira across the table, gloved hand used to block the harsh beam of the flashlight. “Sakura-san do you mind?”

“Shush, you’ll ruin the effect.”

“I ask you again, Goro Akechi, how do you want to do this?” Akira’s hands were folded in front of their face, like they were going to command someone to get in Anat.

“Do what? You’re the one who called me over, saying there was a meeting, then proceeded to drag me into the attic, sit me in this chair, and shine a flashlight in my face.”

The flashlight shifted.

“He kinda has a point.”

“Fair. Okay, we’ll give you two options then. The easy way or the hard way?”

“The easy way?” The second the words left Akechi’s mouth the room burst into motion. Before he even realized what was going on he was seated on Akira’s couch, squished in between the room’s owner and Haru, and the rest of the Thieve’s sat in a rough circle around the room.

“Would you like some coffee before we start, Akechi-kun?” Haru asked, slightly raising her own cup.

“I’m fine, but thank you for asking.”

“Now that all the formalities are over,” Akira draped an arm over Akechi’s shoulder while reclining into the couch, “let’s get this meeting started!”

“The floor is yours.” Makoto said as she placed a snack tray on the former interrogation table.

“Luckily for you, Mr. Decent Lawboy, we’ve decided to forgo the hazing this time. You’d probably arrest us for it anyways.”

“Decent Lawboy?”

“So we’ll get to the main point. I’m sure you’ve already investigated us thoroughly but we don’t have those resources, Mr. Detective.”

“While I won’t agree to give you anything too personal, it would be rude of me to withhold any pertinent information.”

“Then let’s play ‘seven questions’, seniority order.” Akira removed their arm from Akechi and twisted in their seat to face the detective. “Something simple to start, tell us about your Persona.”

“Well I possess Robin Hood, he uses…” Akechi closed his eyes, communicating with his Persona for the information. “Bless, curse, and almighty. He says he’s strong against bless skills but weak to curse attacks. I imagine you’ll use this information to figure out how I fit into the group?”

Akira said nothing as they nodded towards Ryuji.

“Huh? Oh, yeah! Just… let… me…” Ryuji pulled out his phone and started going through his notes app.

“Have you been planning this?”

“It’s not like everyone can come up with a question in 5 minutes!”

“Or two days…” Ann remarked, looking over Ryuji’s shoulder. “Try that one.”

“Hey!” The former track star locked his phone and gently shoved the model away. “Personal space!”

Ryuji met Akechi’s passive smile with a level gaze. “Why’re you always on variety shows?”

“Well I am, in essence, the media liaison for the Phantom Thieves case so it only makes sense that I talk to the press, especially with the increase in interest due to your recent endeavors.”

“No dude, why are you  _ always _ on variety shows? We’re pretty high profile, right? So shouldn’t you be on the news instead? Or press conferences?”

Akechi’s smile tightened around the edges, “I simply follow the directions of my superiors. Variety shows tend to care more about opinions than facts regarding the case, so it’s simpler to appear on those. It wouldn’t be a good look to say we have no real information about the Phantom Thieves, now would it?”

“Okay, geez. No need to get so defensive, it was just a simple question.” Ryuji leaned back, nudging Ann with his shoulder as he reclined.

“Okay! Next question then?” Ann said, obviously trying to diffuse the tension before it began. “Akechi-kun you’re pretty popular, right? So I was wondering how far you’ve gotten in Momentos.”

Her question threw Akechi for a loop. “What’s Momentos?”  _ And why would my popularity matter? _

“You don’t- Oh right. Sorry, since you’d been a Persona user for, you said a month? I thought you would have seen it.”

“Admittedly, I’ve been avoiding the ‘Metaverse’ since my encounter.”

“Well Momentos is a palace that, from what we know, spans the entire rail system. We normally enter through Shibuya Station. You might be able to use other stations but we haven’t really had the need to check.” Ann’s explanation was simple and to the point, like she was reciting something told to her before.

“The  _ entire _ system?” Akechi echoed. He was shocked; such a large ‘palace’ should have been easily noticeable but he hadn’t even seen it even once.

“We’ll show you next week. What’s your schedule like?” Akira asked, pulling up the calendar app on their phone. 

“If we’re planning a Momentos visit I want to discuss making changes to our budget, what with the new member.” Makoto rifled through her bag, pulling out a plain notebook. “Does anyone have any requests to factor in?”

The questioning session is derailed for a bit as Makoto tries to get Yusuke to give a solid number for his art supplies and Futaba scrolls through her phone, looking up the price of Akechi’s replicas. In between questions of his average spending, Akechi realizes he never asked about how ‘popularity’ was relevant to Momentos but can’t find a time to ask.

“Cool, I’ll put in a special order to the Hanged Man tonight. Keep an eye on the group chat for when the pick-up is. Akechi, I can meet you at Shibuya Station and take you there if you’d like?”

“I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“Great. Then let’s get back to the questions. Yusuke, it’s your turn!”

“Do you have any experience with modeling? I find art brings about a unique understanding of a person that other methods lack and would love to have a new subject.” Yusuke said with his usual flair. A round of groans emitted from the earlier thieves as they gained fond looks of exasperation to match. To his credit the artist showed no outward reaction, sans a faint flush. “What? There’s no harm in asking.”

“Sure dude, so long as you don’t ask him to go  _ au natural _ like before.”

“I think I’ll pass actually.” There was a story behind the banter and he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know.

“Then how about this. Tell us when you started thinking it was us.” Makoto’s eyes narrowed as she channeled her sister’s domineering personality. “It’s obvious you wouldn’t happen upon the factory scene by chance, it was a stakeout.”

“Ehe, quite astute, Niijima-san. You don’t need to worry though, the only people who’d be able to put the clues together are your sister and I. In fact I doubt I would have been able to figure it out if not for the app.”

“Speaking of apps and phones,” Futaba leapt up from the bench she had been sharing with Makoto and leaned over the table, the only thing saving both her hair and the snack being Yusuke’s quick thinking, and pointed at Akechi. “You gotta hook me up with some of that good tech! You’re a celeb, right? I bet companies give the ‘handsome detective prince’ freebies all the time!”

“Uhh…”

“Come on, put those connections to good use pretty boy!” Futaba demanded, glasses glinting in the light as though she was a mad scientist. However, any chance she had at a sort of intimidating or unnerving aura was destroyed though when Akira tossed a throw blanket over her head.

“That’s not a question and you had better not.” The trickster was actually serious-serious for the first time since the meeting had started. “If I find that you’ve enabled her quest for world domination you won’t be alive to receive your end of the deal.”

Akira then let the threatening expression fall from his face as he stretched a bit awkwardly to catch the blanket covered Hermit in a chokehold. “And you better stop trying to take over the world you little gremlin!”

“Nothing will save you from the inevitable! This will only delay my plans!”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“No fighting!” Makoto silenced the blond(e) troublemakers with a glare before physically separating the pseudo-siblings. “Haru still hasn’t had her turn and you’re scaring Akechi. Apologize.”

“Sorry Haru.”

“...”

“... Sorry Akechi.”

“Good. Now settle down.”

The detective turned towards the heiress, who was laughing silently into her hand. “Oh don’t worry, they’re always like this,” she reassured, a soft smile on her face. “I’m sure you’ll get used to it if you stick around. Now, I suppose it’s my turn to question you. Well then.” The world seemed to go still as Haru delicately folded her hands on her lap. Akechi couldn't help but focus on how silent it was, how the small smiles at in-jokes or fond expressions the thieves passed between each other vanished, how everyone was looking at him with a cold intensity that would break a lesser man.

“Akechi-kun,” Haru began, head tilting slightly. “Why do you fight?”

So this was it, this was the whole point of this 'meeting’. It didn't surprise Akechi that there were ulterior motives, if anything it reassured him, but for this to be the goal?

“Take your time, I understand it must be difficult to come up with an answer for such a question immediately.”

Were they testing him? There was a faint, almost unnoticeable pause in Haru's words, was she just struggling with the phrasing or did they all believe this to be a simple question? Akechi's thoughts wore themselves in circles as he pondered both the answer and the meaning.

“I suppose… I fight for,” revenge sounded self-serving, not something this group would be interested in, “ill deeds to be paid back in full. It's not dissimilar to what I strive for in my everyday job.”

“Except at least twenty times more illegal.” The smirk in Akira's voice was unmistakable. “But I get that, in fact it's not much different from my rebellion either. Justice should be served to those who deserve it, right?”

“Exactly.” The conversation from then on was light hearted and fairly shallow, but Akechi couldn't shake the feeling that Akira's words were simultaneously a light in the dark and the angler fish waiting to bite down.

* * *

**EXTRA:**

“I’m mildly terrified to ask but… What was the ‘hard way’?”

“Us actually hazing you.”

“... How?”

“The Dating Game.”

“What.”

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:
> 
> 1) the purpose of this (from the Phantom Thieves perspective) was to discern Akechi’s “rebellion”, or the reason his persona awakened. that meaning Akira’s refusal to standby as evil happened, Ann’s resolve to avenge the injustice committed by Kamoshida, Futaba striving to see through the convenient lies forced upon the populace laying unjust blame (though hers fits more in line with P4’s theme).
> 
> tbh i feel like if Akechi had just said “get revenge against my asshole father who threw my mom aside by ripping everything he’s ever worked towards to shred” he’d get more support from the thieves. like, a lot of their rebellions started as campaigns against one quantifiable evil that tormented their life but evolved into a fight to save others from suffering like they did or saving those that are. they would have offered their own experiences regarding similar circumstances and helped him make a more… comprehensive? executable? realistic? revenge plot against his dad, though it wouldn’t really be a revenge plot anymore. it’d be a (hopefully) solid plan led by a team with a good support system and dead set on righting the wrongs committed. gods this is making me realize why i hate akechi. i can see how to save him and he’s such a good character, but he’s also a fucking asshole. i could go on about this for a while but i have two other things i wanted to note so i’ll stop here.
> 
> 2) Morgana was excluded purposefully. If I were in a situation like Persona 5’s I’d have Morgana talk as little as possible around Akechi, just in case he realized that he’d heard the voice before. Take every precaution to ensure your gambit works and all.
> 
> 3) And finally, the Phantom Thieves absolutely planned all of this out. Down to Ryuji and Ann using the “list” from his phone. Okay maybe not 100% down to the tiny details, but they had a general outline that they knew to follow. A serious-humor-serious question setup, “letting” little things slip to appear careless or at ease, stuff like that. they’re playing to the collective's general assumptions about them.
> 
> i probably made the phantom thieves out to be smarter and more cunning than they are in canon but whatever ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ they deserve the credit.


End file.
